Vita, Manitoba
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vita | |
|---|---|
 Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox Church | |
  Vita Location of Vita in Manitoba  Vita Vita (Canada) | |
| Coordinates: 49°08′02″N 96°33′41″W / 49.13389°N 96.56139°W | |
| Country | Canada |
| Province | Manitoba |
| Region | Eastman |
| Rural Municipality | Stuartburn |
| Post office established | 1908 |
| Renamed | 1910 |
| Government | |
| • Reeve | Jim Swidersky |
| • MP (Provencher) | Ted Falk (CPC) |
| • MLA (La Verendrye) | Konrad Narth (PC) |
| Area | |
• Total | 3.06 km2 (1.18 sq mi) |
| Population | |
• Total | 512 |
| • Density | 167.3/km2 (433.4/sq mi) |
| Time zone | UTC-6 (CST) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-5 (CDT) |
| Highways | PTH 201 |
Vita (/ˈvaɪtə/; Ukrainian: Вайта, romanized: Vaita) is a local urban district[2] in southeast Manitoba settled by Ukrainian immigrants in the late 1890s.[3] It is roughly 50 km (31 mi) by road from Steinbach (via PTH 12 and Provincial Road 302) in the Rural Municipality of Stuartburn.
Vita has a multicultural population with residents from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, the largest being Ukrainian and Mennonite.
The community's name was originally Szewczenko, the Polish spelling of the surname of the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko. When the railway arrived in the district in 1910, the company decided that "Szewczenko" was both unpronounceable in English and too long to be put on train schedules.[4] As the rail-line laying foreman (who was of Italian background) reserved the right to name stations along the line in Italian (though the pronunciation was Anglicized), and thus changed "Szewczenko" to "Vita."[5]
Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Vita had a population of 512 living in 178 of its 208 total private dwellings, a change of 6.9% from its 2016 population of 479. With a land area of 3.06 km2 (1.18 sq mi), it had a population density of 167.3/km2 (433.4/sq mi) in 2021.[1]
Amenities
Vita is served by Shevchenko School (part of the Border Land School Division), built in 1970. It offers grades Kindergarten through Grade 12. From 1965 until 1991, the Ukrainian language (in the Canadian Ukrainian dialect) was taught as an option at the elementary and secondary levels—parallel to the French language.[3]
Businesses and services in Vita include, but are not limited to: a restaurant, fuel station, hospital, credit union with drive-thru ATM, post office, two grocery stores, an arena-curling rink, a liquor store, and a hotel-motel.
Culture
Two traditional Ukrainian churches serve Vita: Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox Church and St. Demetrius Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. There is also a Ukrainian National Home (community hall).
Vita is known for its large Canada Day celebration on July 1 of each year. The event generally includes a softball tournament, rodeo, beer gardens, and live entertainment. The night is capped off by a fireworks display.
Sports
In the 1950s and 1960s, Vita was known for staging major, high-priced[6] baseball tournaments hosted by the community's two teams.[7] The Vita Cubs and Vita Mallards played distant teams like Angusville from the Saskatchewan–Northwest Border district; Chatfield/Grosse Isle in the Interlake; Kenora, Ontario; Greenbush, Lancaster, and Karlstad, Minnesota; Plum Coulee/Winkler to the west, and many other teams (Grunthal, St-Pierre-Jolys, Vassar, Dominion City, Sundown, etc.).[original research?][citation needed]
The 1955 Vita Cubs team was elected into the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame along with Steve Derewianchuk, catcher.[7] The Vita Mallards played in Senior Baseball Championships and in the Winnipeg Senior Baseball League as the St. Boniface Mallards.[7] The Vic Bozyk Memorial Trophy in the Manitoba Junior Baseball League is named in honour of Victor Bozyk, who was a dominant pitcher for the Cubs and a major contributor to junior baseball in Manitoba.[8]
